Opening Words,
Message & Closing Benediction
From: Rev.
Laurence Barber,
March 13, 2012,
Introductory words at the beginning of the service
I want to say to the Evans Family…as the
rest of us here…we feel like family too!
We have always felt like family, as you have invited us so many times
into your home and into your lives. We
are so grateful for that. When I came to
Uxbridge in 1974, I was as green as grass.
One who helped me very much was Laurence Evans and Olive too. How many times did we sit up under that tree,
and talk about…… the world, the church…what was right with the church, what was
wrong with the church…this church too sometimes….what was motivating us in life
and what our lives wanted to count for.
We talked about our Lord. Not
only up under the tree, but sometimes after church, when I was
exhausted…goodness knows what I said…but we would come and be ministered to in
your home by your warm stove and your warm heart and embrace. And we are so grateful for that and so we
feel…many of us, all of us, I trust, as we have come together today we just
want to offer you our comfort, our arms of support, our thoughts and our
prayers. You have given…we hope today,
that you will receive from us, as channels of blessing. Above all may we receive from the Scripture,
from our faith, words of comfort and solace that Christ alone can bring, as we
share together in these moments of tribute, celebration and worship and
memory. The Lord bless us all.
MESSAGE
I can just hear or feel Laurence, chuckling! Its time to eat really and he is probably
thinking, I bet Laurie wondered what he was going to say and I bet now
wondering what he is not going to say.
Jane and I want to offer our condolences too, to the Evans family and to
say what a privilege it is to be here in this time of sorrow and celebration,
this time of history and future and presence with you and with the Lord at this
special hour.
…And bright hope for tomorrow, strength for
today and bright hope for tomorrow….how can you say that at a time like this? Well, we have heard many, many reasons
already…for the faith that is in us, many of us, planted there like the sharing
of the lights because of Laurence’s faith, his conviction, his stamina, his perseverance,
this man of truth, this valiant man, this pilgrim. How is it that Christians can talk about hope? How is it that, that’s a healthy thing to do? I mean…someone has died! And we miss him, and there is a huge void
where he was, and there will continue to be.
How can you say that you have bright hope for tomorrow?
Three things…Laurence, I am going to say
three things. It is a Baptist thing to
do….after all…Historically speaking!
Three things… that is that we have a sense as did Laurence, of our place in life, first of all, and we
have a second…an appreciation of the persons
in our life. And then we have a deep
sense of our mission, if you will or a third ‘P’ of our purpose in life. If you want
to be healthy, if you want to be full of hope, you have to have those
things. You have to know who you are and
where you are in life. And you have to
have a deep sense of community and family and an appreciation for those that
God has placed around you….even the people that drive you crazy! The people that say no to you, rather then yes
to you…are part of God’s direction in your life. Have you noticed the Muppets…they are all
weird…each one of those little characters.
Each of them has a character flaw. Compulsive…for cookie Monster! Whatever it is and we have to become aware
that all of us including ourselves are full of strangeness-es and weirdness and
idiosyncrasies. Jim Henson had that
ability…. and the Scriptures have that ability to say that God is not perplexed
about the human condition, and that in each one of us there are those good
things and those bad things and God brings together the sense of family and
fellowship and community to have a sense of place of who we are, where we are
in this context.
Did any man love this community more then
Laurence. Did any man do more in many
very practical ways, as we have already heard today to serve the Lord, not just
in some spiritual hymn singing way in church on Sunday. His life counted, thank God it is Monday
through the days of the week, and through neighbours he met and lived amongst
and through strangers as we have heard, who came to share with him as well.
God is preparing, Jesus is preparing a
place for us. He is giving us a sense of
place, of rootedness. There is a sense
in which we are more then citizens of this world; we are citizens of…as it says
in Scriptures…of another place, of another city, of another realm. And yet that realm is not far away, long ago
or far off. It is the kingdom realm of
God’s intervention in human History. And
it is very near to us...it is at the door.
It is very near at hand. And
God’s presence and God’s purposes are all around us today. God who created the stuff of life, who
created us also for himself brings together Heaven and Earth…we pray “Thy will
be done...on earth as it is in Heaven”.
It is not that we are unearthly and not mindful of our neighbour and
mindful of God’s good gifts of creation.
God made this world for himself and put us in it to tend it, to look
after it and all of its creation…splendor, albeit so marred. Jesus is gone to prepare a place for us that
where He is there we may be also. You
know, many scholars believe that that is not the end game. The end game is the city of God. In fact the end is a new creation into which
those of us, who trust in Jesus, have already become new creatures. And so there is a sense in which scholars say
that those rooms that Jesus spoke of, was really speaking in the context of a week
of the feast of Tabernacles, of those temporary booths, tenting…camping…you
went camping. Jesus himself came, the
word became flesh and dwelt…tabernacle...built a tent for a while among
us. And so it is where Laurence is
today…and it is not purgatory…where Laurence is today…he is in the presence of
Christ, with David Evans and celebrating together with all the family that have
gone before, and all the members of Christ’s community. That is not the end. Because there is coming a day when this
broken creation will become a new creation, when these frail bodies that are
mortal, will be swallowed up in immortality.
Now my father was a farmer too…a market
gardener. We did not have animals…we had
a big cat. And he said to me one day…as
he had some seeds in his hand…”here Laurie...taste these”. They were radishes and I knew it. But that seed…you wouldn’t sell in Loblaw’s
or Longo’s. You sell the finished fruit…
the produce. We shall know each other as
we are known...but we’ll be quite different.
You heard of the two caterpillars together one day. And a butterfly flew over and the one caterpillar
said to the other…”You will never get me on one of those things!” But
the fact is you will! And the fact is, says
Scripture, that one day we will all be changed…in the twinkling of an eye. And what is mortal and passing, broken, frail
and sometimes sick and full of trial and problems will become immortal and all
those things, as Pastor Phil read to us in Revelation will have passed away and
we will be new. Do you know your place in life?
Not just rooted in Uxbridge or wherever it is you live, are you rooted
in God? Are you rooted in the
Scriptures? Are you rooted in this
creation in the sense of God’s good gift, looking forward to the new creation
when all will be restored and precious as He comes to take us to be with himself? And as beyond that He brings us back to be
here together.
The persons
in our lives. We have heard about this
today. I won’t go on and on about
that. It is not good, says the Scriptures,
that we should be alone. God creates
help meets for us and marriage. He gives
us family, some of us…some of them bigger then others for some reason. He puts us together in Christian family and
community to encourage us…but above all, the greatest relationship we can have
is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ our Saviour and our Lord. We Christians believe that in Him all things
hold together. That in Him, there is the
fullness of the Father’s Glory. That if
you want to see God, we need to look at Jesus.
If you want to see who we should be in our full humanity, in our true
humanity, look at Jesus. He is the Man,
the Model, the Saviour the One who came, sweeping down to gather us up…to put
us back into the place, to the role, the purposes of God that he intends for
each one of us and for all of us together as His children.
John Wesley on his death bed, said, “When I
am gone, don’t speak so much about John Wesley, speak about my Saviour.” I pray that today our thoughts will be drawn
heavenward and to the Christ who was everything to Laurence…and I trust is to
you as well.
The bright hope of the Creation, come to
fruition in Jesus Christ. The place where we are…The people in our lives…and the purpose that God has for us. We Christians call it mission. You can just say it is the reason to get up
in the morning. And if it is true that
as new creatures…longing for a new creation, having a relationship with God…but
also with the earth, we are made. We
enter into the dance of the Trinity into the relationship of God, the
relationship with each other, the relationship that has been marred even with
this world…or there wouldn’t need to be green peace and ecological gospel. This is our Gospel, God loves this world…He
doesn’t love the world of sin and rebellion, but the creation is God’s good
gift, that He is restoring and one day it will be perfect and complete once
again.
It is never too late to get your vocation
figured out…you are going to be doing it for eons. Those of you who are farmers got a head start
on those of us who are evangelists. What
would evangelists be doing? I don’t know
but there is a thread and a purpose of why God created each one of us. And we just have a little bit of a glimpse of
some of it, what God is doing in and through us. You take away sin and you give to us true
humanity in fullness in a restored creation…what will we be doing? God only knows…through eternity. It won’t be that we are disembodied…although
one of the marks of the fall and rebelling is that for a while when we die, we
are disembodied. Says, Paul, …we are
unclothed in the sense and we long to be clothed once more. The whole earth is groaning, longing for the
creation once more, for God’s restored purposes. But when we are restored….You see Jesus is
the first fruit of the dead. He is the
man who was God, the God-man who has been raised from the dead, the first that
this has ever happened to. He is the
first fruits of those…of all of us…who will be raised from the dead. He has already entered into the next
stage. And we shall be like him…and we
shall be with Him and He with us. Maybe
God will say…here is a planet…knock your self out.
Maybe this black and blue and green planet
is just like a seed in the whole universe that God is going to give us. I don’t want to sound like one of those cults
like new Armstrong or new world order….but the scripture is full of this new
creation and we are new creatures. Why
do we have hope? Why do we have strength
for today? God is with us...and has
given us these many pure and precious promises as we look forward to that great
day of His coming…of the unveiling and of the re-unification of all, with all
who have gone on before to the bright country.
I think the same as may have happened that
John Bunyan wrote about in Pilgrim’s Progress…and with this I am done. “And after this it was noised abroad that Mr.
Valiant-For-Truth was taken with a summons.
And when he understood it, he called for his friends and told them of
it. And then he said, “I am going to my
father. My sword I give to him that shall
succeed me in my pilgrimage and my courage and my skill to him that can get
it. My marks and my scars, I carry with
me to be a witness for me that I have fought his battles who now will be my
rewarder.” And when the day that he must
go hence was come, many accompanied him to the riverside in to which as he
went, he said Death where is thy sting?
And as he went down deeper, he said Grave where is thy victory? And so he crossed over and all the trumpets
sounded for him on the other side.”
Amen. So be it!
After
the congregational hymn, In Christ Alone,
was sung, Rev. Barber closed the service with…
Words of faith and hope and courage,
comfort in the Gospel
Now let us pray…
Blessed be the God and father of our Lord
Jesus, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all
trials that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the
comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. And now the God of peace that brought again
from the dead, our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep through the
blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do
His will working in you that which is well pleasing in His sight through Jesus
Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever.
AMEN.
